BlacKkKlansman (2018)

[baumer]

Discuss

[The Panda]

It’s a pretty powerful movie, that’s entertaining in the build up, and then has some really harrowing parts to it.  Incredibly well done, and surprisingly tame (prior to the last sequence) in its commentary.  It doesn’t bash on cops, but recognizes there’s major issues that need to be addressed.

 

It does a great job at tying Trump’s rhetoric and showing how similar it was to messages from the KKK.  It also does a good job at highlighting more subtle racism in a movie focused on an overtly racist group.

 

Im wondering how necessary the ending sequence was.  On one hand, it was very effective, relevant and powerful.  It definitely gut punched me more than anything in the film.  On the other hand, it feels a little out of place from a technical filmmaking perspective, it may have been more of a preaching to the choir moment.  Overall, I’m glad it was included, I’ve just tended to think some of the more powerful statements against Trump are the ones where you make the connection without even having to bring him up.  In other words, it felt like the film was trying to connect the dots for you instead of leaving them there for you to connect yourself.

 

Then again, maybe we do need a clear message and not a hidden one.  It was refreshing and poignant.

 

One of Spike Lee’s best, and more focused movies imo.  A-

Edited August 11, 2018 by Pandamia!

[filmlover]

Angry but profound, there is no questioning that BlacKkKlansman is a product from Spike Lee. It's powerful, it's funny, it's suspenseful, and it has a whole lot to say about how far we have not come but doesn't feel at all preachy (although I thought some of the dialogue winked at the audience a tad too much). The 135 minutes just flew by for me. Great cast too: John David Washington has clearly inherited some of papa Denzel's talent, Adam Driver is great as always, Laura Harrier clearly has a bright career ahead of her, Jasper Paakkonen always had me on edge, and Topher Grace is both amusing and hateful as David Duke. I thought the use of the Charlottesville footage at the end was perfect too when it could've come across as heavy-handed (my audience booed when they showed the footage of Trump defending the Nazis).  It's not a subtle movie, but it sure will stick with you. A-

[Barnack]

I think the footage at the end made the heavy winking in the dialogue ok, at least it was fully assumed.

 

Less comedic that I thought it would from the few moments of trailer I saw, it had really high moment but was not Do the right think perfect script level with some moments a bit forced (like when they send him as a personal security of Duke escort risking everything)

[The Panda]

I don’t have an issue with the dialogue in the film, mainly because those phrases (and phrases like them) were actually used by white supremacists and the KKK at the time.  

[baumer]

Why would anyone have a problem with the dialogue?  These are words that are used and have been used for 100's of years.  

 

The best film of the year for me so far.  It educates and makes you laugh in some parts and then makes you cringe and feel ashamed at being a human being in other parts.  My favourite part of the film, and perhaps the most harrowing section of the whole film is the juxtaposition of the two gatherings at the end.  The Klan welcoming their new members and the planning of the bombing and them the black power gathering where Harry Belafonte tells the story of the young black man convicted of raping a white woman by an all white jury in less than 4 minutes.  This story and the telling of it almost brought me to tears.  Belafonte tells it in a calm manner, the complete opposite of the first speaker at the beginning of the movie.  This scene is like the final fight in a Rocky movie or the final act in a Mission Impossible film.  The whole film is building to this one moment and it's the crescendo.  As @filmlover mentioned, it shows how far we haven't come.  This is a film that takes place in the 70's and yet it could be about events that happened yesterday.  The leader of the "free world" comes off as racist, you have young and elderly black folk being gunned down by the police, you have rallies where racist inbreds are carrying confederate flags and so on.  This movie takes place 40 years ago and yet we see a lot of the same stuff on the news today.

 

The acting in this is top notch from everyone.  John David Washington was simply hypnotic.  He was funny yet serious, vulnerable yet strong and just made me forget his was an actor playing a role.  Adam driver was his normal terrific self and even the smaller roles from actors like Topher Grace and Michel Buscemi were very well played.  I think this would have been a hard film to make for an actor, I really do.  Some of the lines that they had to recite would have been difficult to say but credit all the actors and of course director Spike Lee for getting it all out of them.  As for Spike, he is hit and miss for me.  He's done some brilliant films like Malcolm X and do the Right Thing and he's had some that just didn't connect with me.  I'm not sure if this is his best because Malcolm X is in my top 100 but it certainly is in the same conversation.

 

I hope this is mentioned at the end of the year when it comes to Oscar.  It's a topical film and one that should be seen by everyone, at least in North America.

 

10/10

[YLF]

On 8/12/2018 at 12:53 PM, Barnack said:

I think the footage at the end made the heavy winking in the dialogue ok, at least it was fully assumed.

 

Less comedic that I thought it would from the few moments of trailer I saw, it had really high moment but was not Do the right think perfect script level with some moments a bit forced (like when they send him as a personal security of Duke escort risking everything)

That literally happened though. You know this is based on a  true story, right? 

Edited August 18, 2018 by YLF

[Barnack]

3 minutes ago, YLF said:

That literally happened though. You know this is based on a  true story, right? 

With the movie starting with this is real and some of it is real shit, I thought they took some liberty and didn't know which was true which was not, the bomb storyline. the love story storyline are both made up, the white cop being jewish for example.  I thought this part was false (him doing the security part I would have thought maybe true but him pushing the risk for no reason would not), but the reason why and how much contact he decided to have with him to be quite different.

 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wd4gym/we-talked-to-the-black-undercover-cop-who-infiltrated-the-kkk-in-colorado

 

Reading is version in that article, it is really close to the movie I imagine you cannot have someone that decide to infiltrate the KKK like that and not be someone reckless with a different love for useless risk taking than the average human.

[Webslinger]

With BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee delivers his most electrifying film in more than a quarter-century. In adapting Ron Stallworth’s memoir of experiences that prove truth to be far stranger than fiction, Lee crafts an extremely entertaining dramedy that also keeps a keen eye on parallels between its period setting and today’s racial and political tensions. Lee walks the line between effective comedy and searing drama so well that no tone shift feels inorganic and the film succeeds in being enjoyable, riveting, and moving all at once. Despite knowing that Stallworth will survive, the narrative is still packed with surprises and genuine white-knuckle tension as it approaches its climax. Despite taking some slight creative liberties (including setting the film several years earlier than the true events it depicts), it remains true to the spirit of Stallworth’s story and makes razor-sharp eviscerations of the irrationality and misguided volatility that undergirds racist ideology; it successfully portrays the organization alluded to in the title as both hilariously inept in their blind hatred and dangerous in the violent proclivities of their most unstable and radicalized members. There’s also a virtuoso sequence that cross-cuts between “power” chants at a white supremacist faux “baptism” and a Black Student Union meeting that does a sublime job of differentiating the former’s desire to deny power to others from the latter’s cry for recognizing power that racists have long tried to deny them. In front of the camera, John David Washington radiates charisma in the title role; his swagger and screen presence are reminiscent of those of his accomplished father. As his physical surrogate, Adam Driver does the most dramatically and comedically effective work of his career to date; the two actors share such excellent chemistry with one another that their characters’ seamless collaboration in the film feels natural. Little-known Jasper Paakkonen does chilling work as an especially volatile white supremacist who constantly ups the narrative’s dramatic stakes. Topher Grace also contributes revelatory work as an organization leader who remains active and dangerous today; he succeeds in couching reprehensible rhetoric in a deceptively affable tone, and his humiliation in his final (dramatized) scene feels cathartic. Viewers are bound to be split on the film’s nonfiction coda – which stitches together footage of the Charlottesville tragedy and the president’s “both sides” response – but I found it to be a fitting reminder of the continued resonance of the film’s themes and the need to continue to combat white supremacism in all its forms. As both unconventional entertainment and a pointed repudiation of past and present racist rhetoric, BlacKkKlansman is an incredible accomplishment that – for my money – surpasses even the likes of Get Out, Mudbound, and Sorry to Bother You as the most powerful cinematic statement for black empowerment and against the present resurgence of racism at the highest level of political power.

 

A

 

Stray Thoughts:

- That cross-cutting sequence: Seriously. Holy hot damn. I don't think I've ever seen a better visual and aural example of why saying "black power" is inherently different from saying... something else - and, by extension, why "black lives matter" is inherently and significantly different from "all lives matter," or why "both sides-ism" is untenable. Assuming that this film takes off as an Oscar contender (and with all the contemporary relevance it has and the fact that Spike Lee's work has never been recognized in Best Picture or Best Director, I think it will be in the running), it had better land that well-deserved editing nomination.

 

- I had no idea that Denzel Washington had a son who acted, let alone one who channels Denzel's distinguishing qualities so well.

 

- I have no idea how the actors playing the Kendricksons committed to playing such reprehensible characters and finding some twisted degree of humanity in them; they're evil people, but the scene where they're in bed reflecting upon their planned bombing acting as the pinnacle of all their hard work highlights the idea that they're so far gone that they're incapable of recognizing their evil and they see themselves as the heroes of their own story. It's a disturbing scene, to be sure, but it's also quietly masterful in illustrating how extremists rationalize and normalize their positions.

 

- I'm still mulling it over, but this might displace Black Panther as my favorite film of 2018 to date.

[Rorschach]

I haven't seen that many Spike Lee films. The only other one I've seen is Do The Right Thing. After watching this film, however, I really want to explore Lee's filmography. This was such a riveting and thought-provoking film. From beginning to end, I was glued to my seat, perplexed that such a story like this actually happened (very fictionalized for sure but still). John David Washington and Adam Driver both give incredible performances, the former I'm very much looking forward to seeing where his career goes. That role feels very tailor-made to launch an actor's  career and I can't wait to see what other projects Washington ends up getting attached to. Topher Grace is also fantastic as the weasly and extremely pathetic David Duke. The final scene featuring him was both extremely satisfying and downright hilarious. All of the actors do an extremely good job in this film.

 

I don't get very tense during a lot of movies but I was legit on the edge of my seat during the climax of this film. My heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest, a feeling that only a few horror movies have done for me in my lifetime (although the car scene from Eighth Grade is up there as one of the scariest scenes of the year in a non-horror film). The final moments of the film also hit incredibly close to home, showing footage from the events of Charlottesville, which happened over a year ago. Spike Lee shows us that we, as a country, still haven't changed in four decades. Violence and racism are still prevalent and as loud as it was back in the 70s. This is an incredibly important film that has been released at a time where our country is still divided and is still dealing with the same exact issues that were relevant more than 40-50 years ago. It is heart-wrenching to think about and this film serves as that message.

 

I can't decide whether or not I like this better than Do The Right Thing or not. So I'll just give it the same rating for the time-being.

 

10/10

[dpthnkr13]

I saw this movie last night and wanted to write about it then, but was advised by a very intelligent friend to wait and let everything sink in.  I spent much of the viewing being angry, frustrated and down right pissed off!  Though the dialogue and words used were nothing I haven't heard before or been the target of in my life, they still never cease to ignite a slow and low burning flame when they are heard in the context of degradation and racism.  Anyone who has knowledge of the 60's and 70's and the racial inequality and tension of those times should have gone into the theater expecting to hear this language as it was the common verbiage of that era.  It isn't right, but it is part of our unsavory history even if it makes us uncomfortable.  The problem is not that it was written into this script, and might I say very convincingly used by the actors, it is the fact that the language is all too familiar in our conversations today.  It is sad that after Ron Stallworth, Flip Zimmerman, and Felix Kendrickson risked their careers to unmask the devils of the KKK and show the world of the extents to which they would go, today we are still fighting the same battle though on different battlefields.  

 

This movie was well written, extraordinarily directed and executed by the cast in a manner that is definitely Oscar worthy.  It is very educational, informative and entertaining.  Do not go into this film thinking it is a comedy as it is not!  But I have no idea why anyone would think racial inequality and attempts at ethnic cleansing is a laughing matter.✌️

[Mr Impossible]

I was liking the movie until like the last 30 minutes. The ending felt so rushed and the ending bit with 

Spoiler

Charlottesville and Trump felt weirdly out of place. Like I get the message but it just doesn't mesh well at all with me.  

Also we barely get to know the main characters. We learn almost nothing about their past. Also the film's message seems a bit muddle. It seems like it didn't want to take a position when it came to the black radicals we see in the beginning of the movie and the police. Like it wanted to play safe with that. The film is well acted though. 

[filmlover]

1 hour ago, Mr Impossible said:

I was liking the movie until like the last 30 minutes. The ending felt so rushed and the ending bit with 

  Reveal hidden contents

Charlottesville and Trump felt weirdly out of place. Like I get the message but it just doesn't mesh well at all with me.  

 

Completely disagree with this take. Throughout the movie there are various allusions to modern events (David Duke says that more people like him need to be in office in one of the more "wink wink" lines) and the closing footage of Charlottesville and Trump praising the Nazis brings it all home by showing that yes, people like that indeed are in office right now and that this shit is very much happening today still.

[Mr Impossible]

11 hours ago, filmlover said:

Completely disagree with this take. Throughout the movie there are various allusions to modern events (David Duke says that more people like him need to be in office in one of the more "wink wink" lines) and the closing footage of Charlottesville and Trump praising the Nazis brings it all home by showing that yes, people like that indeed are in office right now and that this shit is very much happening today still.

I get the message but I just didn't think it worked the way it was introduced in the movie. It was jarring especially cause of the rushed ending. 

[Fancyarcher]

My review.

 

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